Had a great birthday in Napa, thanks for all the nice wishes. Over a great bottle of cab I had a thought. The Age of Civility is dawning. You can’t see it from the usual suspects, but there’s a massive, growing group of people over the hate, outrage and personal attacks.

If you disrespect anybody that you run in to
How in the world do you think anybody’s s’posed to respect you
If you don’t give a heck ’bout the man with the bible in his hand
Just get out the way, and let the gentleman do his thing
You the kind of gentleman that want everything your way
Take the sheet off your face, boy, it’s a brand new day.

If you’re walking ’round think’n that the world owes you something cause
You’re here you goin’ out the world backwards like you did when you
Put your hand on your mouth when you cough, that’ll help the solution
Oh, you cuss around women and you don’t even know their names and you
Dumb enough to think that’ll make you a big ol man

Start with respecting yourself.

Sing it, Joe,

And before you answer with whataboutitsm, remember If you don’t respect yourself
Ain’t nobody gonna give a good cahoot.

If you cannot discuss a point without descending to yelling, ad hominem and name-calling, I sincerely – in Joe’s immortal words – ain’t gonna give a good cahoot.

It may not amount to much, but at least it’s a start towards civility.

Maxine Waters calls for attacks on Trump administration: "If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere." pic.twitter.com/jMV7wk48wM

We are rapidly approaching the point where there won’t be any alternative but to fight fire with fire. Where does Waters do her grocery shopping? Where does she gas up her car? Does she go out to eat? Does she attend movies or concerts? Does she walk on foot to her House office? Any time Maxine Waters is in public, why doesn’t she fear that a mob of conservatives will descend on her like the mobs of Democrats she incites?

If you establish the principle that harassing political opponents in their private lives is permissible, believe me, they will do it. Let me tell you what that will lead to: an escalating spiral of retaliatory actions. If you know the true story of the Hatfields and McCoys, you know what I’m talking about. What’s more, although the spiral begins with insults and tense but non-violent confrontations, it never ends there. As matters escalate, people feel increasingly self-righteous and their contempt for their adversaries intensifies to the point it which the unthinkable becomes thinkable. Then it happens.

This poisonous attack cannot stand in civil society.

So ask yourself, rather than wonder “What to wear to this week’s political theater?” do you really want to wonder “how’s the temperature in the Balkans?”

First of all, my heartfelt thanks to each person who wrote, called and texted asking how I am doing.

At one point, I thought, “I will get well. Look at all the people praying for me.”

I am doing much better, and continue to improve. When I left the hospital on April 10th, I could not sit up; I’m now able to walk half a mile unaided. Recovering from ileus and peritonitis took me two full months, and I still have to get back to full speed.

For the past two months I have mostly avoided the news, politics and particularly Latin American politics. As far as I can see, American politics has descended into contrived hysterics over every darn thing. LatAm will continue to be LatAm, and I simply did not have any energy to summon.

Guatemalan Attorney General Thelma Aldana, at the urging of the United Nations’ International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala and the Kremlin, has convicted Igor Bitkov, his wife, Irina, and their 26-year-old daughter, Anastasia, in spite of lack of plausible evidence.

Mr. Bitkov was the owner of the St. Petersburg-based North-West Timber Company (NWTC). In 2005 he borrowed money from a handful of Russian state banks to upgrade some of his factories. Around the same time, a senior executive of one of the banks that lent him money asked to buy 51% of the company, Mr. Bitkov told me from prison through his Guatemalan lawyer Rolando Alvarado last week. He turned down the offer.

From 2005 to 2007 NWTC revenues grew by 30%, according to company financial statements. In 2007 Sberbank valued the company at $428 million. By 2008 he’d repaid 71% of the loan, along with interest due. NWTC was worth 2.7 times the remaining $158 million owed. Nevertheless, Mr. Bitkov says, in April 2008 the banks demanded that he immediately repay the balance.

He couldn’t comply and the company was forced into bankruptcy. Mr. Bitkov alleges that the bankruptcy administrator sold NWTC’s assets at fire-sale prices to entities controlled by various executives of the banks.

This case raises many questions. For instance, I do not understand why the whole family is persecuted – after all, they lost all their assets. Why is the UN involved in this? What was the banks’ initial involvement?

And on and on. Should we just look at this as another instance of the long reach of tyranny and corruption?